Neverwinter Hydra

Hydras have always paid a fixed price for their scaling: X counters for X mana, a linear curve you can size precisely to the game. This one buys that variability twice, taxing X in the cost and then converting each point spent into a d6 rather than a guaranteed counter. The double-X tax is the balancing lever: at six total mana X is 2, so you roll two dice averaging seven counters, where a conventional hydra at six mana would arrive as a fixed 4/4. You are paying extra for the right to roll, and the dice repay it with a long right tail when they cooperate and a runt when they don't. That variance is the entire trade. A green fatty is the natural home for it, since a big body wants to be big and can absorb a bad roll far better than a spell that has to hit an exact number to do its job. Trample turns whatever surplus the dice hand you into damage rather than wasted stats against a single blocker, and Ward 4 guards the whole investment against removal that would otherwise cleanly punish a creature whose value is front-loaded into one unrepeatable roll. The design belongs to the short-lived wave of dice-rolling green creatures, and it is the version that leans hardest into the gamble, asking you to commit the mana before you know what you bought.